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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825182">there will be mountains you won't move</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegedlyAnnie/pseuds/AllegedlyAnnie'>AllegedlyAnnie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Discussion of Christianity, Post-Canon, this one's for the recovering catholics babey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:47:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegedlyAnnie/pseuds/AllegedlyAnnie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you still believe in God?”</p><p>Nicky drops his head and smiles a little, a sad, tired thing. Then, he looks at Nile again and says, “I knew you would ask me this.”</p><p>“You don’t...you don’t have to answer. I’ve just been starting to...wonder. I never wondered before, but now…”</p><p>“Now, you are spending time around Andy?”</p><p>“Well…”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nile Freeman &amp; Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>there will be mountains you won't move</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I couldn't get this idea out of my head about how I feel like Nile would have a really hard time reconciling her faith with the concept of her own immortality, and obviously there would be no one that she could ask about it except for Nicky, who also probably had a really difficult time coming to terms with his faith but in a wildly different way. So I put on some Frank Ocean and came up with some self-indulgent nonsense.</p><p>No beta, we die like men.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After the London incident, someone suggests laying low for a while. No one can agree afterwards on who it actually was (it was Nicky, for Joe’s benefit), but in the end everyone agrees to it, and they make their way to a safehouse in Rome. Nile would have preferred somewhere that she knew the language, but staying anywhere in the UK is right out of the question since Merrick’s face is on every news outlet in the country. Even internationally, it’s still a story, but Rome is an easy place to disappear and has the added benefit of being stunning. Plus, she gathered promises from all three of the others that they would teach her Italian.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So far, Andy’s taught her the naughty words. Nile supposes she’ll have to rely on Joe and Nicky to explain how to conjugate a verb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only problem is, in order to lie low, they do actually have to lie low. Nile’s allowed to explore a little bit, but between the language barrier and the Italian newscasters staring directly into her soul as they talk about Merrick’s death being a tragedy (at least, she assumes from their tone that that’s what they’re saying), she mostly ends up staying in the safehouse. And that’s fine. It’s a nice place. But Nile was never any good at sitting still. She ends up working out a lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s how Nicky finds her, shadowboxing in the main living area. She’s pushed the sparse furniture out of the way to give herself some space and ended up with almost a child’s approximation of a boxing ring: a clear square in the center, surrounded by all of their seating. Nicky perches on the nearest armrest, waiting politely, but Nile doesn’t seem to notice him until he says, “Don’t drop your elbow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At which point, Nile very nearly comes out of her skin. Her hand flies to her heart, and she whirls, almost accusing, “When did you get there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just a minute ago. Sorry,” he answers, holding his hands up with that infuriating little almost-smile that he does, which makes Nile think he’s not sorry at all. She makes a mental note to have him show her later how he can be so quiet, right after she handles the more immediate issue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swipes some sweat from her forehead and points at him. “My elbow was fine,” she informs him, more disgruntled at being considered amusing than at being instructed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky shrugs. “If you want someone to hit you on the left, sure,” he says, standing and wiping imaginary dirt from his hands. He turns to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Recognizing a teaching opportunity when it’s about to walk away, Nile quickly says, “Show me.” After a pause, she adds, “Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky doesn’t teach like a drill sergeant. He’s patient, for one thing. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t mock her when she makes a mistake. He just circles her, arms crossed, giving firm instructions and occasionally adjusting her stance or demonstrating something more slowly. It’s nice to learn again, something beyond Italian swear words or the amount of time that it takes for her body to heal from being thrown out a window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>True, there’s a certain cognitive dissonance to discussing ways to break out of a chokehold with a former Crusader, but Nile tries not to think about it when she’s in the middle of a conversation; dwelling too much on her newfound family’s history tends to send her into her head. She forces herself to just think of Nicky as a fellow soldier and worry about the weirdness of him being over nine hundred years old later. She’s getting good at this kind of compartmentalization.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, they both agree that they’ve practiced enough. Nile’s not sure what time it is, but the sun is starting to slide down towards the horizon. “Shouldn’t Andy and Joe be back by now?” she asks, flopping down on the couch. Nicky sits next to her with a little more care for the creaking springs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll come back when they come back,” he answers placidly. “If you need to be concerned, I will let you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gives him a look. “This is like the signal thing, isn’t it?” she asks dryly. He laughs, just a little huff of breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is very much like the signal thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile stretches before sitting up and looking at him again, a little hesitant this time. He must sense the change in her demeanor, because he shifts so that he’s facing her more directly, hands folded together. Sometimes, he’s so still that it makes Nile think of statues of the saints.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I ask you something?” she asks. She doesn’t wait for a reply, because if she waits, she’ll lose her nerve, so instead she just barrels ahead: “Do you still believe in God?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky drops his head and smiles a little, a sad, tired thing. Then, he looks at Nile again and says, “I knew you would ask me this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t...you don’t have to answer. I’ve just been starting to...wonder. I never wondered before, but now…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, you are spending time around Andy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky rubs his mouth, considering her question. “It is a difficult thing,” he confesses after a moment, gesturing vaguely. “I was so strong in my faith that I went to war for it. And in that war, I saw that...my faith, and the faith of men like me, had made monsters of us. We committed atrocities in the name of God, and...I was lucky, I suppose, that I have lived long enough to come to terms with what I was a part of. It took much longer than the span of a single normal life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To answer your question though, I am no believer in the Church. My belief in God...is more complicated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile tilts her head, watching him. Softer, she asks, “Complicated how?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t answer for a moment. When he does, it’s like he pulls the words from deep inside, like it costs him something to say them out loud. “It becomes hard, when you have seen what we have seen, to believe in an all-knowing, all-loving, merciful Father. But I have to believe in <i>something,</i> because if I believe in nothing…too easy to lose sight of the good things in the world.” He shakes his head, troubled. “Too easy to end up disenchanted, like Booker, or Andy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what do you actually believe in, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, at last, Nicky smiles beatifically. “I believe we find God in other people.” At the sight of Nile’s raised eyebrows, he laughs a little. “Is this surprising?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She props her elbow on the back of the couch, leaning her head on her hand. “I mean...I guess it’s like you said, you’ve seen a lot of bad stuff. At the hands of people. Right?” He inclines his head a little, so she continues, “How do you find God in people?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the things that’s great about Nicky, Nile is coming to understand, is that he doesn’t rush. And he doesn’t treat her like a child, even though her twenty-six years on this earth--as tumultuous as they have been--are barely a blink to him. He spreads his hands a little as if to encompass the entire world, and he explains, “For every person that I have killed, or that has killed me, there have been ten that have been worth dying for. For every person that has made me doubt, there have been ten more that have made me believe. People can be capable of such kindness and such compassion that I think there must be a greater purpose in our lives beyond simply surviving until we can’t. Our purpose must be to help each other. And if that is not divine, what is?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time he stops speaking, Nile is staring at him. He just raises his eyebrows questioningly, as if he expended all of his words on this speech, the most that she’s ever heard him say at once, and now he has to communicate through his expressions and body language.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” she says, smiling a watery little smile. “Just...people say Joe’s the poet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am the poet,” Joe says from the doorway behind her, sounding playfully affronted. Nile whirls around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you guys keep <i>doing</i> that?” she demands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about it, you’ll learn. What were you two talking about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile glances at Nicky. He’s looking up at Joe like the sun rises and sets in his eyes. For his part, Joe looks better than he did when he left with Andy. They both do, actually; when Andy appears at Joe’s shoulder, their eyes are both clearer, their shoulders less heavy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another thing that Nile is coming to understand is that sometimes when Joe and Nicky make eye contact, they forget that conversations happen with words, or that there are other people in the room at all. Finally, Nile has to clear her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were talking about God,” she says, with a little bit of a preemptive verbal wince.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Predictably, Andy scoffs. “If you two are going to get theological, I need a drink,” she says, though she belies her tone by brushing her hand over Nile’s shoulder as she passes and ruffling Nicky’s hair on her way into the kitchen. Joe kisses the top of Nicky’s head as he follows her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Joe’s gone, Nicky blinks and looks blankly at Nile again, ignoring her single raised eyebrow like he didn’t just do a deep dive into Joe’s soul for a full minute. “Are you still feeling doubtful?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile considers the question, taking stock of the state of her immortal soul. “Not...right now. Not as much,” she admits, smiling a little despite herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If that changes, you can always talk to me. I have had many doubts through the years, so I am happy to help you through yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wow, she can see why Joe’s in love with this man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks, Nicky,” she says, trying to act like her eyes aren’t stinging. “I mean it, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles softly at her and answers, “You are welcome, Nile.” Then he stands and kisses her forehead and follows the others into the kitchen. She stays where she is for a minute, then wipes her eyes, stands, and goes to join her family.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from "Godspeed" by Frank Ocean, which is the song that Nile puts on right before she meets Andy in the movie.</p><p>I'd be lying if I said that a lot of this didn't come from the fact that I was raised Catholic. I'm not sure if Nile's denomination is ever established, but they say to write what you know, and this is what I know, so here we are. Anyway, if you want to hit me up on the tumble, i'm <a href="http://panpacificdefensecorpse.tumblr.com">panpacificdefensecorpse</a>. Thank you!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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